Selyx
The Selyx, also referred to as the Selyxians, are a half-human race of sentients that reside in the southeastern kingdom of Syxuin. Amongst one of the most-hated races in the Land for their supposed vampirisim, cannibalism and violence, the Selyxian are seldom welcomed in other kingdoms and provinces. Appearance The Selyx are renowned for their physical beauty, which has been described at times to be "ethereal" and "angelical". Often described as tall, lean beings with pointed, cat-like faces and bright, wide eyes, the Selyx are often compared to the big cats for their physical prowess, body structure, and feline characteristics. However, Selyxians are more comparable to sea dragons or dolphins, for they build their settlements as close to the shoreline of the ocean as possible, and are renowned for their powerful lungs, which allow them to submerge themselves beneath the sea's cruelly cold waters for unusually long periods of time. The Selyxians have clammy, wet skin and are often said to smell strongly of sea salt even when far from their homeland. However, perhaps one of the most distinguishing features of the Selyxian people are their retractable fangs—used not for blood-sucking but for the ripping and tearing of the jugular vein, a primative adaptation once used by the Selyxian for the hunting of fish and seal. These fangs, like venomous snakes', can be retracted or extracted simply by pulling back the skin along both sides of the mouth using a buccal muscle not found in humans and other sentients. These fangs can be extracted when the Selyxian feels threatened, or used as a display of aggression as well—and, in some more southern Clans, can be used as a way of impressing Selyxian women. These fangs are not hollow and as such no venom gland is present. Because of these fangs, however, much of the Land believes the Selyx to be cannibals with a taste for human blood, and as such they receive much negative attention. Selyxians have the widest range of skin color known to the people of the Land, and it is this that ties them more closely to their oceanic habitat. It has been hypothesized by many that the Selyxian have such bright, beautiful skin tones as a way to signal to others, including ocean predators, that they are potentially dangerous or even poisonous, adding to the wrongful assumption that the Selyxian are venomous. While no true cause has been proven, the Selyxian consider their skin color to be the most beautiful part of them, and many skin colors are prized over others. For males, there can be a wide range of colors—from pale blue to light turquoise to even red and gold—while females have a smaller range of color, and usually bear pale blue skin tones. Red-skinned and gold-skinned males are considered more beautiful and thus enjoy more power in the Selyxian hierarchy, while males with pale skin tones often suffer lower positions and less success in Selyxian culture and society. Rarely do we see albinisim in Selyxians, but very seldomly a male will be seen with pinkish white skin and red eyes. Albinism had yet to be found in Selyxian females until Au'rath Meshta—daughter of the brother of the Selyxian king Scald—was born and rose to power as a prominent Lady of the Tratian hierarchy. Reproduction Like humans, Selyxians have no mating season and can have children at any time during the Turning. Selyxian women find it much more difficult to conceive than human women, and thus most female Selyxians have one to two children during their lifetime as opposed to four to six, as normal with human females in the Land. Selyxian women have a pregnancy period of nine months and give birth vaginally. Twin births are extremely rare, but not impossible. There are more male babies born to Selyxian women than females, but when Selyxian males mate with humans or other sentient females, there is a higher ratio of female babies to male babies. Selyxian men can reproduce successfully with human and other sentient women, but female Selyxian cannot produce offspring with any other male than those of their own race. Hierarchy and Government The Selyxian have a very strict hierarchal system dominated by powerful males, their wives, and their harems, which can consist of two to twenty females not tied by a Contract to the male and free to exercise their lover's power at their own will. These males are often golden- or red-skinned, and have ties—no matter how weak—to the royal family, which has ruled Syxuin for two-thousand years and continues to keep their dynasty alive through frivolous breeding techniques. These males often build settlements on coasts close to the ocean and control their people with strict laws and regulations stoically enforced by the male's nephews, sons, brothers or cousins. Women with nondescript family backgrounds are often recruited into the harems of the ruling male's immediate family—and are bred like rabbits in order to maintain the royal blood. Many Selyxian women confess to enjoying the power brought about by entering a harem, and some Selyxian mothers even encourage their daughters to seek joining the harems of powerful or semi-powerful males in order to secure a life of comfort and safety. Women in these harems enjoy a surprising amount of freedoms—and are only visited by their lover to breed. They are protected by the male's close companions or other male relatives and are clothed, fed and kept in lavish palaces far from the woeful eyes of the other Selyxian males, who find it incredibly difficult to find partners. Selyxian government is controlled completely by the king and his wife, and, in many cases, the king's harem. The Selyxians have no holy text to govern them, but each city of Syxuin has a Court of ten individuals (all male), which help advise the king in important decisions that affect all or many of the Selyxian people. All Courtesans are related to the king in some manner, and thus often agree with their ruler's decisions, rarely offering any resistance to the king's whims and desires. It has been documented by ancient scholar Atlas Oldore that one of the Selyxian kings, Niore'em of Pyrenia, made it law that all women join the harems of the king and his descendants, and this decision was appluaded by the members of the Selyxian Courts and passed immediately into law. Although this law was eventually scrapped, the other kingdoms of the Land still scoff at the Selyxian's malleable and often unstable government. Lineage The first Selyxian king was known as Enth'del, a red-skinned male with a harem of over one hundred women and no wife to speak of. Enth'del had thirty sons and twelve daughters, and, in order to keep the royal bloodline from muddling, mated his daughters to twelve of his sons, producing fifty offspring, thirty of which were male. It is from here that the royal bloodline becomes murky to outsiders, but to the Selyxians, blood is extremely important, and family trees are meticulously archived in order to prevent the royal bloodline from being lost or documented falsely. There are nearly three hundred desendants of the current king Scald, all descending from his three legitimate sons, his twelve illegitimate sons, his eight illegitimate daughters, and his three brothers' legitimate sons and daughters and illegitimate sons and daughters. This bloodline does not take into account half-Selyxian offspring, meaning that there could be nearly five to six hundred true carriers of the first king's blood. Saurandir, the husband of Mirle and the father of Saraphir, is an illegitimate son of one of king Scald's lovers, and Ta'pna, a rare albino male and abassador of Syxuin, is Saurandir's brother. Saurandir's lover during his lifetime in Syxuin, Laigira, was one of Scald's illegitimate daughters from the same lover, making Saurandir and Laigira brother and sister. This kind of inbreeding is not uncommon for the Selyxian, and, unlike humans, their offspring tend to display no physical or mental deformities often associated with incestual breeding.